The Rekindled Trump-Putin Bromance
Can this election get any stranger?
BY DAN RATHER AND TEAM STEADY
For two-thirds of the country, early voting has begun — and not a moment too soon.
It has been 637 long days since the president took office. If you have a point of view about his job performance, now is an excellent time to express your feelings at the ballot box. Donald Trump is nowhere on that ballot, but he wants you to think he is. He has tried to make this midterm election more about him than about any Republican member of Congress. We will soon find out if that is a winning strategy.
Around the country, Americans are coming out in record numbers. We’ve heard from several people who have already voted. The throughline reaction is one of relief, as in, “thank goodness I was finally able to do more than just shake my head about what is happening to our country.”
We grew up in a world that seemed to make sense, where we were taught to embrace protection of our country as job one. You may not always have agreed politically with those in Congress or in the Oval Office, but we all thought we were playing the same game with the same rules. The baseline — protecting Americans at home and abroad — was being met.
Not anymore. The lowest of low bars is now being trampled.
Enemies of the United States are now at the front door, and some are being welcomed inside. The last 637 days have been a lesson in patience and perseverance for many Americans, convinced they are watching Trump systematically dismantle and destroy the foundations and protections of the country.
He is handing multiple victories to one of those enemies, Vladimir Putin. As a reminder, the Russian president is a brutal dictator charged with multiple war crimes who is supporting Iran in the war with the U.S.
The Atlantic’s lead headline today is “America Is Now an Ally of Russia.” The Rupert Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal had an equally startling column. Its Monday editorial was titled “To Russia With Love, Signed Donald.”
Trump is upending decades of anti-Soviet and anti-Russia policies and diplomacy that have been successfully championed by Republicans.
Over the weekend, Trump suddenly suspended sanctions against Russia, sanctions pushed by and named for the late Senator Lindsey Graham, sanctions that had just been passed by Congress and signed by Trump.
Various Trump administration officials had been hinting that intelligence sharing with Ukraine might be on the chopping block. And then that happened. Late last week, the Elon Musk-owned satellite system that provides Ukraine with American intelligence not so mysteriously stopped working. The order to block Starshield “came from inside the White House,” according to Reuters.
Trump claims to know nothing. Musk says it wasn’t him. Since neither is known for their honesty, we may never know the truth. But one thing has been made clear: Musk, a private citizen, has acquired the power, and the permission, to significantly affect the outcome of the war for Ukraine, including possibly causing military and civilian casualties. No civilian should ever hold that much power.
Considering how his fortunes have changed in just one week, Putin’s announcement on Monday was not surprising. According to The Journal, he wants a trilateral meeting to negotiate an end to the war. But he wants the three parties to be Russia, the United States and … China, not Ukraine, the victim of Russia’s aggression.
No one should be counting their electoral victories before all the votes are cast, but a Democrat-controlled Congress could hold Trump accountable for his choice to support Russia, a sworn adversary, over our historic allies.
Most Americans don’t want to think about it, but in the background of these developments is this:
Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution defines treason against the United States as “levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.” By any objective measure, lifting Russian sanctions is giving aid and comfort to an enemy.
Any suggestion of holding the president to a standard of treason is too far out for a clear majority of Americans. But as Trump draws ever closer to Putin, the subject is bound to come up in some conversations.
The timing of Trump’s rekindled personal alliance with Putin comes as he is crisscrossing the country trying to energize his isolationist base. Making the closing argument for the midterms that helping Russia “is in the national interests of the United States” is a curious choice, but Trump’s actions are rarely straightforward.
Unbridled corruption has become another hallmark of the second term of Trump’s presidency. And Americans are paying attention. In a recent Fox News poll, 88% of respondents said corruption is the most important issue facing the country, ahead of inflation, ahead of gas prices.
And it is the issue that keeps on giving. Every day brings another scandal related to Trump, or someone in his orbit, doing something nefarious. Last week, it was Kimberly Guilfoyle, the then ambassador to Greece, strong-arming a donor to pay off her $100,000 credit card debt.
Then there was the story of The Washington Post rooting out the well-hidden names of the 57 donors who gave millions to Trump’s ballroom fund. Many had business in front of the federal government, and one donor’s husband got a pardon after the donation. One name not on the list was Donald Trump, who had promised to fund the building himself but has not done so.
ABC News broke the story that Attorney General Todd Blanche issued a memo stating that presidents can shield “presidential communications with private advisers so long as the communications relate to official presidential decision making.” Blanche was laying the groundwork to block congressional subpoenas and document requests should Democrats take control of Congress.
In that same vein, Trump promised to preemptively pardon everyone in the White House, including himself.
And that is just a taste of the corruption we learned about in the past week. A citizen, any citizen, would be right to ask, “Who’s in charge of our country, and why are they not thinking about me?”
Every citizen has a right to want to scream, “Stop the world, I want to get off.” The unrelenting firehose of news has seemingly gone from bad to impossible to comprehend. But screaming changes nothing; voting does. The most powerful, most impactful thing any American citizen can do is vote. So, no matter how you feel, go vote!
If you have already voted, good for you. We’d love to hear about your experience. And if you haven’t yet and have questions about the process, go to Vote411 for state-by-state information about registering, voting early, voting in person, and voting by mail.
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Stay Steady,
Dan
NYA Thanks Dan Rather and Team Steady!